West Point Urban Warfare Expert Accuses Piers Morgan of Contradicting Himself on Gaza
John Spencer, head of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, rejected Piers Morgan’s claims about Israel’s conduct in Gaza and argued that the IDF has taken unprecedented steps to reduce civilian harm. The dispute escalated in recent days during an interview between the British broadcaster and Spencer, a former U.S. Army officer, over how Israel is fighting in the Gaza Strip and how many civilians have been killed.
Morgan argued that Israel is causing massive civilian casualties while striking only a limited number of militants. He said Israel is killing “massive numbers of civilians” and suggested many people believe the IDF does not sufficiently distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population. Spencer pushed back immediately, saying Morgan had wrongly attributed to him a quote he never said. He clarified that he did not call the IDF “the most moral army in the world,” but said that “Israel and the IDF have implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any other military in history.” He said his conclusions are based on more than 100 interviews with senior Israeli security officials, including the prime minister, two chiefs of staff, divisional commanders, brigade commanders and battalion commanders, as well as repeated visits to the fighting in Gaza.
The two also clashed over restrictions on journalists entering Gaza independently. Morgan said the fact that reporters cannot operate freely in the Strip raises suspicion about what is happening there. Spencer replied that similar limits exist in other war zones and said that during his visits he did not rely only on commanders’ accounts, but also observed operations on the ground.
After the interview, Spencer posted a detailed response on social media accusing Morgan of internal contradiction. He said Morgan claimed Israel was killing “massive numbers of civilians,” but later rejected any attempt to estimate the ratio of militants to civilians killed, arguing the exact numbers cannot be known. Spencer listed what he called IDF measures to minimize civilian harm, including advance warnings by leaflets, phone calls, text messages, voice messages, drones with loudspeakers, radio, television and social media instructions, humanitarian corridors, pauses in fighting, maps for civilians, and systems to monitor civilian presence in real time. He said many of these steps had never before been used at similar scale by any military.
Spencer also cited figures he uses to estimate casualties, saying Gaza’s Health Ministry reported about 72,000 dead, while the IDF says about 25,000 to 26,000 militants were killed. Even using Hamas’s figures in full, he said, the ratio is less than two civilians per militant killed, and after removing natural deaths and casualties caused by Hamas or other terror groups, it could fall to about 1.5 civilians per militant. He compared that with World War II, the Korean War, the Iraq War, the battles for Mosul and Mariupol, and said Gaza’s ratio is lower than most well-known urban battles. He added that casualty counting in urban warfare is extremely difficult because terror groups do not wear uniforms and civilians and fighters are not clearly separated, and said that even years after major battles, exact death tolls remain disputed.
Spencer closed by condemning what he called a double standard in public debate: “You cannot claim for years that Israel is killing huge numbers of civilians and then say you cannot estimate how many civilians were killed, and therefore cannot examine the ratio between civilians and militants. If the data are reliable enough to accuse Israel, they are reliable enough to assess the ratio. If they are not reliable, they cannot be used only when they support one conclusion.”
